Performance Insights from “The Ten Pillars of Success” by Josephine Perry
This book surprised me. It was offered by Audible as a free book for members so I selected it to see what I could learn. I was not expecting it to be one of the best books I have ever listened to in terms of guidance for improvement and performance.
Here are the key points I got from each of the chapters and pillars.
1. Sense of Belonging
The chapter on developing a sense of belonging resonated with other books I have read, including Belonging by Owen Eastwood. Essentially a sense of belonging provides meaning and the idea of contributing to something bigger than ourselves which has been shown in many studies to raise our level of motivation, commitment, and performance. If I feel I belong somewhere, I will care more about others and about my role in the group.
2. Developing Mastery
The model that I developed and described in my book Accelerating Automatic has at its centre, the idea of mastering automatic high performance. The contributing elements in my view are mindset, method, and moodset.
In his book The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle describes three essential ingredients for excellence; purpose, vulnerability and psychological safety. This book (The 10 Pillars…) reinforces the need for a sense of safety and warns about the real handicap of imposter syndrome which can prevent us from believing in our own ability and block us from unlocking our potential.
3. Autonomy
Empowerment and expecting the best of others is a vital step on the staircase to team excellence. Trust needs to be given before it will be returned. Josephine Perry also highlights the importance of appreciation, delegation, and explanation.
Feeling appreciated is one of the best feelings in the world. What we often forget is that as we get older, we have the responsibility to make others feel appreciated. This can be done in many ways but the most genuine is an authentic pat on the back (literally or figuratively) to ensure someone feels appreciated.
Delegation has multiple benefits if done well. It frees up the delegator to be more autonomous, while also helping the individual to whom a task has been delegated to feel empowered and trusted.
Explanation is where many of us fall short. Taking the time to explain something clearly saves time in the long run. It also builds a level of respect between leader and follower in order to enhance consistent professional standards in any setting.
4. Powerful Purpose
Identifying our purpose is a critical exercise for individuals and teams as we all intuitively know. It is our “why”, the thing that gives our mess some meaning!
A way to establish our purpose is to ask significant others to instinctively describe their perspective on our purpose. The objective views of those who care for us and spend time around us (and who will tell the truth to us), are often the most accurate.
My purpose is “To inspire myself and others, and to guide and serve leaders and teams, to unlock true capability, and to be all we can be”. I arrived at this after canvassing feedback from fellow coaches and colleagues.
“To inspire myself and others, and to guide and serve leaders and teams, to unlock true capability, and to be all we can be.”
Sustaining our purpose through the tough times is most challenging, and it is only when we have a powerful purpose pulling us along that we will genuinely sustain progress no matter the adversity.
Perry encourages us to visualise our own wiki page as a way to really illustrate the importance of striving for the right legacy. What do you want people to say in your eulogy?
5. Cultivate Confidence
As a performance coach I am a great believer in accountability partnership. Coaching can help challengers to build confidence through the generation of self reliance by deliberate practice.
When someone who believes in us, listens to us and encourages us, we can grow in confidence and raise our performance.
Some ideas Perry lists in this chapter included the use of confidence cards, goal setting, having a motivational mantra, and being clear on three strengths and three habits to apply to preparation. These are all great ideas. A mantra I wrote for myself 15 years ago was the following:
“When you get to the top of the mountain, you forget the pain of the climb.”
6. Process Driven
David Brailsford championed the concept of marginal gains. Small actions taken consistently help achieve progress and ultimately significant success. British cycling is a case in point; making up the numbers in the Tour de France for 100 years and then 7 victories in a decade! The results amplify the value of the contributing indicators. These were the minute details of daily preparation and training. Everything from the engineering of the equipment to the harmonising of the human was scrutinised for enhancement! This included hygiene, sleep patterns, and nutrition among many other small 1% gains.
James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, provides an interesting equation; 1% improvements maintained daily every day of the year will make you 37 times better at the skill in question! It is a mathematical certainty.
Perry talks about the importance of avoiding “comparitis”. This is something I find myself telling my children. Applying best effort and improving ourselves is the only thing we can control. We cannot control what others do or are. Comparitis is a negative distraction. The All Blacks, one of the most successful teams in the world of sport, say the same thing.
Perry also encourages readers to see both sides of an issue in order to maintain a balanced perspective. We tend to view and share the highlight reel of life on our social media channels. Everyone experiences good and bad times so don’t become disillusioned when times are tough. We are not the only ones having a tough time.
Chunking is a good way to make a big challenge more achievable. Break the challenge down into chunks which feel more manageable. One chunk at a time – “slow and steady wins the race”.
Chapters in a book are a type of chunking. I used a kind of chunking approach when compiling my !nspired book series. I completed and published a weekly LinkedIn article every week of the year and then after 52 weeks I had a book. Three years of applying this principle and I had a series!
Scenes in an Act are similar. Break things down to break through inertia.
Nelson Mandela championed the quote, “I either win or I learn!”. In terms of learning, Perry recommends this list of questions, what did I/we do well, what did I/we do poorly, what should I/we carry on doing, what would I/we change, and very importantly, what actions will I take?
As a performance coach offshore, one of my main roles is to facilitated AARs (After Action Reviews) and the prompts are always about understanding lessons learned (good and bad) and then progress to solutions or actions for closure.
7. Courage
Perry notes the mantra of preparing for the worst while practicing for the best. It is almost like an alter ego, very closely linked. Examples she gives include Tiger Woods and Dwayne “the rock” Johnson!
At Exceed, our first value is “Lead with Courage”. It takes courage to “out the truth”, to “call a spade a spade”. There is always a gravitational pull towards average and without courage, the likelihood is that performance creep will set in.
It takes courage to step forward and to step up. Stepping outside our comfort zone is a frequently referenced idea but in practice it takes courage; moral courage and physical courage at times.
8. Pragmatic Optimism
I really enjoyed this chapter in the book. Especially because Perry talks about reframing the language we use. Simple comments like “Yes and…” rather than “Yes, but…”! A big one for me is to use “we” rather than “they”. Be optimistic and take ownership!
The book sites an example from a US military commander in Korea. His unit was surrounded by the enemy but instead of giving up, he said, “Now that we are surrounded, we can shoot in every direction!” Reframing a situation can help.
9. Internal Insight
As Socrates said, “Know thyself”.
Perry interviews a comedian in this chapter and I found it interesting how the interviewee reflected on the right of passage that all good comedians go through whereby they have to do a stand-up routine involving making fun of themselves. Clever self deprecation requires a level of introspection, reflection and maturity. It requires internal insight.
Meditation is a popular concept but practiced poorly by most, including me! What is interesting is that the likes of Tim Ferris and Dave Asprey who have interviewed dozens of extraordinary people, say that the number one game-changer for these game changers is… you guessed it, meditation.
10. Gratitude
This one intuitively makes sense and yet few of us practice gratitude to the degree that we should.
Perry rightly comments on appreciation programmes at organisations, care packages to for needy folk. There are also gestures of gratitude, and saying “thanks for going the extra mile”.
Being grateful for three things a day is good advice. I have also heard it be said that when you are grateful, you cannot be angry. The two emotions cannot exist together!
Perry talks about the different definitions that people have for success. Certainly for me there needs to be meaning to my endeavours, happiness in the process, a sense of striving, of fulfilling potential.
As a family we say grace before meal times. I also came up with the acronym GRACE for a daily ritual. Gratitude, Reading, Affirmation, Collaboration, Exercise. These prompts serve as steps ton stay grounded.
Great book from Josephine Perry. I learned new ideas, had a few epiphanies, and reinforced some things I know to be powerful truths as well.
